Intro To Affiliate Marketing

Many of you have probably heard the term “Internet Marketing” and may have a few different ideas about what it is all about. Internet marketing covers a wide range of online tasks such as e-mail marketing, search engine optimization, content marketing, and so on. For this post I’d like to discuss a little bit about affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing was how I originally got into Internet marketing. It can be quite profitable, and enables you to employ a lot of the other Internet marketing methods with it.

Affiliate marketing to the online world is like commission-based referral work in the outside world. If you don’t bring in visitors or sales, you don’t make any money. Sounds kind of hard right? Well, it can be… but unlike normal jobs that require you to work 9-5 every day, affiliate marketing, if done right, can be turn into an automated money maker.

Almost every ad or banner you see on a website you visit is a form of affiliate marketing. When you click on that banner and visit a site, that click gets tracked back to where you clicked it. Some affiliate programs give a small payout per click, but most do it by sale. The commission of a sale can vary from a flat rate to a percentage of the order, depending on the vendor. The great thing about affiliate marketing is you can pick any niche you want to market, so it can be something you truly believe in. I started out doing affiliate marketing for an electronic cigarette company after falling in love with their product. Once you pick your niche, you can choose whether you market for one, or many different brands. Joining an affiliate marketing program usually doesn’t cost anything, and a lot of companies will even throw in a bonus for signing up. After all, if you are successful, you make them money.